On Integral Thought and the Global Conspiracy

Thursday, 5 April 2018

There
is a growing awareness in the field of alternative economics that our
society's current system of money creation has detrimental economic,
environmental and social consequences. Many authors have now analysed
this system and its effects and concluded that an alternative must be
found if humanity is to solve its most pressing problems. In this
posting I would like to look at the effect of this system on the
character structure of the individual citizen and explore whether it
may be a contributing cause of the so-called "self-contraction"
(or tendency toward "self-grasping") described in the
spiritual literature. I will then suggest how an alternative system
advocated by some monetary-reformists may successfully address the
problem.

Although
interesting in itself, I will not attempt an in-depth analysis of the
effect of the banking system on society as a whole as this has been
done by others [1], but will instead confine my efforts to the
question above.

2.
How Money Creation Works

In
order to explain how our system of money creation currently operates,
and to draw out some of the negative effects it has, I will refer to
Charles Eisenstein's book Sacred Economics [2].
In this book Eisenstein outlines a complete critique of the modern
economic world and offers a series of prescriptions for changing it
for the better. While more hard-headed integral readers may find some
of these prescriptions unrealistic, I believe most will find
Eisenstein's analysis of the problem to be very good. In line with
his vision of a "gift economy", Eisenstein has made Sacred
Economics available for download free of charge from a dedicated
website [3].

To
explain how the banking system works I will borrow a fairly long
parable from Eisenstein, which he in turn part-borrows from economic
visionary Bernard Lietaer. This parable, called The
Eleventh Round, gives a stripped-down description of the workings
of the money system and illustrates the basic mathematical problem
inherent within it. It goes as follows:

"Once
upon a time, in a small village in the Outback, people used barter
for all their transactions. On every market day, people walked around
with chickens, eggs, hams, and breads, and engaged in prolonged
negotiations among themselves to exchange what they needed. At key
periods of the year, like harvests or whenever someone's barn needed
big repairs after a storm, people recalled the tradition of helping
each other out that they had brought from the old country. They knew
that if they had a problem someday, others would aid them in return.

One
market day, a stranger with shiny black shoes and an elegant white
hat came by and observed the whole process with a sardonic smile.
When he saw one farmer running around to corral the six chickens he
wanted to exchange for a big ham, he could not refrain from laughing.
"Poor people," he said, "so primitive." The
farmer's wife overheard him and challenged the stranger, "Do you
think you can do a better job handling chickens?" "Chickens,
no," responded the stranger, "But there is a much better
way to eliminate all that hassle." "Oh yes, how so?"
asked the woman. "See that tree there?" the stranger
replied. "Well, I will go wait there for one of you to bring me
one large cowhide. Then have every family visit me. I'll explain the
better way."

And
so it happened. He took the cowhide, and cut perfect leather rounds
in it, and put an elaborate and graceful little stamp on each round.
Then he gave to each family 10 rounds, and explained that each
represented the value of one chicken. "Now you can trade and
bargain with the rounds instead of the unwieldy chickens," he
explained.

It
made sense. Everybody was impressed with the man with the shiny shoes
and inspiring hat.

"Oh,
by the way," he added after every family had received their 10
rounds, "in a year's time, I will come back and sit under that
same tree. I want you to each bring me back 11 rounds. That 11th
round is a token of appreciation for the technological improvement I
just made possible in your lives." "But where will the 11th
round come from?" asked the farmer with the six chickens.
"You'll see," said the man with a reassuring smile.

Assuming
that the population and its annual production remain exactly the same
during that next year, what do you think had to happen? Remember,
that 11th round was never created. Therefore, bottom line, one of
each 11 families will have to lose all its rounds, even if everybody
managed their affairs well, in order to provide the 11th round to 10
others.

So
when a storm threatened the crop of one of the families, people
became less generous with their time to help bring it in before
disaster struck. While it was much more convenient to exchange the
rounds instead of the chickens on market days, the new game also had
the unintended side effect of actively discouraging the spontaneous
cooperation that was traditional in the village. Instead, the new
money game was generating a systemic undertow of competition among
all the participants."

This
parable begins to show how competition, insecurity, and greed are
woven into our economy because of interest. They can never be
eliminated as long as the necessities of life are denominated in
interest-money. But let us continue the story now to show how
interest also creates an endless pressure for perpetual economic
growth.

There
are three primary ways Lietaer's story could end: default, growth in
the money supply, or redistribution of wealth. One of each eleven
families could go bankrupt and surrender their farms to the man in
the hat (the banker), or he could procure another cowhide and make
more currency, or the villagers could tar-and-feather the banker and
refuse to repay the rounds. The same choices face any economy based
on usury.

So
imagine now that the villagers gather round the man in the hat and
say, "Sir, could you please give us some additional rounds so
that none of us need go bankrupt?"

The
man says, "I will, but only to those who can assure me they will
pay me back. Since each round is worth one chicken, I'll lend new
rounds to people who have more chickens than the number of rounds
they already owe me. That way, if they don't pay back the rounds, I
can seize their chickens instead. Oh, and because I'm such a nice
guy, I'll even create new rounds for people who don't have additional
chickens right now, if they can persuade me that they will breed more
chickens in the future. So show me your business plan! Show me that
you are trustworthy (one villager can create 'credit reports' to help
you do that). I'll lend at 10 percent--if you are a clever breeder,
you can increase your flock by 20 percent per year, pay me back, and
get rich yourself, too."

The
villagers ask, "That sounds OK, but since you are creating the
new rounds at 10 percent interest also, there still won't be enough
to pay you back in the end."

"That
won't be a problem," says the man. "You see, when that time
arrives, I will have created even more rounds, and when those come
due, I'll create yet more. I will always be willing to lend new
rounds into existence. Of course, you'll have to produce more
chickens, but as long as you keep increasing chicken production,
there will never be a problem."

A
child comes up to him and says, "Excuse me, sir, my family is
sick, and we don't have enough rounds to buy food. Can you issue some
new rounds to me?"

"I'm
sorry," says the man, "but I cannot do that. You see, I
only create rounds for those who are going to pay me back. Now, if
your family has some chickens to pledge as collateral, or if you can
prove you are able to work a little harder to breed more chickens,
then I will be happy to give you the rounds."

With
a few unfortunate exceptions, the system worked fine for a while. The
villagers grew their flocks fast enough to obtain the additional
rounds they needed to pay back the man in the hat. Some, for whatever
reason--ill fortune or ineptitude--did indeed go bankrupt, and their
more fortunate, more efficient neighbors took over their farms and
hired them as labor. Overall, though, the flocks grew at 10 percent a
year along with the money supply. The village and its flocks had
grown so large that the man in the hat was joined by many others like
him, all busily cutting out new rounds and issuing them to anyone
with a good plan to breed more chickens.

From
time to time, problems arose. For one, it became apparent that no one
really needed all those chickens. "We're getting sick of eggs,"
the children complained. "Every room in the house has a feather
bed now," complained the housewives. In order to keep
consumption of chicken products growing, the villagers invented all
kinds of devices. It became fashionable to buy a new feather mattress
every month, and bigger houses to keep them in, and to have yards and
yards full of chickens. Disputes arose with other villages that were
settled with huge egg-throwing battles. "We must create demand
for more chickens!" shouted the mayor, who was the
brother-in-law of the man in the hat. "That way we will all
continue to grow rich."

One
day, a village old-timer noticed another problem. Whereas the fields
around the village had once been green and fertile, now they were
brown and foul. All the vegetation had been stripped away to plant
grain to feed the chickens. The ponds and streams, once full of fish,
were now cesspools of stinking manure. She said, "This has to
stop! If we keep expanding our flocks, we will soon drown in chicken
shit!"

The
man in the hat pulled her aside and, in reassuring tones, told her,
"Don't worry, there is another village down the road with plenty
of fertile fields. The men of our village are planning to farm out
chicken production to them. And if they don't agree ... well, we
outnumber them. Anyway, you can't be serious about ending growth.
Why, how would your neighbors pay off their debts? How would I be
able to create new rounds? Even I would go bankrupt."

And
so, one by one, all the villages turned to stinking cesspools
surrounding enormous flocks of chickens that no one really needed,
and the villages fought each other for the few remaining green spaces
that could support a few more years of growth. Yet despite their best
efforts to maintain growth, its pace began to slow. As growth slowed,
debt began to rise in proportion to income, until many people spent
all their available rounds just paying off the man in the hat. Many
went bankrupt and had to work at subsistence wages for employers who
themselves could barely meet their obligations to the man in the hat.
There were fewer and fewer people who could afford to buy chicken
products, making it even harder to maintain demand and growth. Amid
an environment-wrecking superabundance of chickens, more and more
people had barely enough on which to live, leading to the paradox of
scarcity amidst abundance.

And
that is where things stand today.

I
[Eisenstein] hope it is clear how this story maps onto the real
economy. Because of interest, at any given time the amount of money
owed is greater than the amount of money already existing. To make
new money to keep the whole system going, we have to breed more
chickens--in other words, we have to create more "goods and
services." The principal way of doing so is to begin selling
something that was once free. It is to convert forests into timber,
music into product, ideas into intellectual property, social
reciprocity into paid services.

Abetted
by technology, the commodification of formerly nonmonetary goods and
services has accelerated over the last few centuries, to the point
today where very little is left outside the money realm. The vast
commons, whether of land or of culture, has been cordoned off and
sold--all to keep pace with the exponential growth of money. This is
the deep reason why we convert forests to timber, songs to
intellectual property, and so on. It is why two-thirds of all
American meals are now prepared outside the home. It is why herbal
folk remedies have given way to pharmaceutical medicines, why child
care has become a paid service, why drinking water has been the
number-one growth category in beverage sales.

The
imperative of perpetual growth implicit in interest-based money is
what drives the relentless conversion of life, world, and spirit into
money. Completing the vicious circle, the more of life we convert
into money, the more we need money to live. Usury, not money, is the
proverbial root of all evil.

3.
The Effects of Usury

This
simplified story contains within it an explanation of the entire
problem with our system of money creation.

For
the purposes of this current essay I would like to point out several
pernicious effects of usury as noted by Eisenstein and then relate
them to the character structure of the average citizen.

The
first effect is that when a society's system of credit creation is
based upon interest, this leads inevitably to the centralisation of
capital. This is because the usury-based banking system demands that
$11 be repaid for every $10 that is created and lent [4], thus
sucking money out of circulation. This has the effect of pulling all
the wealth of the world into the financial system, an effect that is
only counteracted by having a) growth of the money supply, to ensure
more currency is continually created and circulated, and b) heavy
taxation in order to ensure capital is redistributed somewhat more
equitably.

A
second consequence of usury pointed out by Eisenstein is that it
causes the production of goods and services beyond the level
required by basic human demand. In the parable this is represented
by the glut of chicken-related products experienced by the
villagers. Eisenstein summarises these first two effects as
"scarcity amidst abundance".

The
third consequence is that usury creates collective greed,
competition and insecurity. This is due to there never being enough
currency in existence for everyone to pay off their debts, leading
to a "musical chairs" situation whereby, in the absence of
further money-creation, people are reduced to fighting one another
for the tokens required to keep ahead of the debt collector.

The
final effect I would like to draw attention to is the incessant
conversion of the natural world into money. This is obviously
pathological in and of itself as continued unchecked it would lead
to the destruction of the planet, but I will argue it also has a
damaging effect on the character of the average citizen.

In
the next part I will suggest that each of these harmful social
effects of usury has a correlate in the character structure of the
individual living within the usury-based economy. To do that it is
necessary to very briefly summarise the work indicating that the
structure of a society, and particularly its economic base, is
mirrored in the internal psychological structure of the individual.

4.
The Relationship Between the Individual and the Collective

This
relationship between the structure of a society and the character
structure of the individual living within it has been studied in some
depth in the philosophical and psychoanalytic traditions. Many
thinkers who have addressed this issue have come to the conclusion
that such a connection exists and that the structure of society has
an important influence on the inner life of the average citizen.
While a full treatment of this subject falls beyond the scope of this
article, I would like to mention a few thinkers who have addressed
this topic in order to show that it is a widely held view.

One
of the most well-known advocates of the position that the structure
of society affects the structure of the individual was, of course,
Marx. Marx held the view that the economic base is paramount in
determining the nature of the consciousness of the average citizen
and that capitalist modes of production have an inherently alienating
affect upon it. While I do not know enough about Marx to take a
position on his philosophy as a whole, I will, in this posting, be
following the view that the material base has an important effect on
the consciousness of the individual.

From
a psychoanalytic perspective, an analogous discussion was initiated
by Freud, particularly with his book Civilization and Its
Discontents [5].
It was then continued by those who came after him, for example by the
then Marxist Wilhelm Reich in The Mass Psychology of Fascism [6]
and Erich Fromm in The Fear of Freedom [7].
All held the view that there is a direct causal correspondence
between the structure of society and the character structure of the
average citizen. This relationship is imposed in childhood, so the
argument goes, via the emotional and cognitive [8] environment of the
individual's family, which is itself determined by the wider social
milieu in which both exist. Barring therapy, the individual thus
patterned (or, in pathological cases, armoured) then continues in
this mode for the remainder of her life.

Andy
Smith in his book Worlds within Worlds [9],
which, to my mind, is the best holarchical model that we currently
possess, also claims that there is a direct relationship between the
individual's inner world and the structure of the society in which
she lives. In Andy's model society is a higher-order holon that
subsumes the individual, and the inner experience of the lower is
formed by it looking up at the structure of the holon in which it is
embedded. Smith's work is based on a scientific rather than
psychoanalytic model, and so he does not directly discuss the issue
of character structure, yet he arrives at a conclusion compatible
with that of the analysts.

The
holarchical schema that readers of this essay will likely be most
familiar with is the quadrant model of Ken Wilber, introduced in
versions of his model subsequent to Wilber-IV [10]. In this model,
while there is no direct causal relationship between the collective
and the individual, there is still a high degree of correlation
between them, with the two (right-hand) collective quadrants and the
two (left-hand) individual quadrants all influencing each other via
multiple feedback loops.

In
the mandalic model that I am developing [11], the relationship
between the individual and the collective is basically the same as in
Smith's one-scale model, but with a more psychoanalytic emphasis. In
my view the collective exerts a causal influence on the individual
and to a large degree determines her character structure. In terms of
the self-contraction, we could say that the individual is a lesser
mandala within the greater social mandala, and that a contraction in
the higher will cause a contraction in the lower, via all of the
interpersonal processes outlined by the analysts.

At
one time there was much debate on Integral World as to whether
society is a higher-order holon than the individual, a la Smith, or
whether Wilber's symmetric view is the correct one. The outcome of
this debate will no doubt be interpreted differently by different
readers. My take on it is that Smith is right and that the problems
he has pointed out with the opposing "symmetric" position
are indeed fatal. I am obviously therefore adopting a one-scale view
in this posting, but the argument I am putting forward applies,
albeit in a slightly modified form, regardless of which model we
choose to adopt.

What
we can at this point say is that the most fundamental aspect
of a society is its economy as this forms the so-called material base
upon which the superstructure of culture is built. In an earlier
version of his model, outlined in Up From Eden
[12], Ken Wilber puts forward a theory of levels of
exchange, in which the structure of the individual is determined
by the flow of tokens in and out of his being at various levels of
reality. In this view, the flow of higher-level, cultural tokens is
greatly influenced by the structure of the flow of lower-level,
material tokens such as money, and a distortion or imbalance in the
lower predisposes the higher to reproduce that imbalance on its own
level. While in Wilber's view higher levels can overcome the
imbalances of the lower (by mechanisms not fully explained), the
entire structure of the individual and his culture is still
determined to a very large degree by the structure of the flow of
tokens through the material base.

By
combining Wilber's thinking on this fundamental nature of the
material base with a view that sees the collective as exerting a
causal influence on the individual, we arrive at the conclusion that
the economy of a society has a profoundly important effect on the
character structure of the individual living with it. In this view
the economic base determines to a large extent the character of the
average citizen, and pathologies and imbalances within the flow of
money will cause pathologies within the personality structure of the
individual.

5.
The Effect of Usury on the Individual

As
the system of currency creation and exchange is the most fundamental
aspect of the economy and therefore the material base, we should look
to see what the pernicious effects already noted of this being based
upon usury will be on the character structure of the individual.

I
would suggest the following correlations:

The
centralisation of capital within the economy correlates with the
centralisation of psychic resources within the individual ego. In
other words, the contraction of the monetary sphere that
centralisation represents causes a self-contraction within the
average citizen. This self-contraction is the root cause of all the
personal maladies that afflict us in our daily lives.

The
"slackness" within the economy represented by "gluts"
of goods and services correlates with a "slackness" within
the individual character structure. This would manifest as a certain
impulsiveness and lack of self-discipline within the individual,
utilized eagerly by a consumerist society to keep us purchasing
unnecessary products, but also with other obvious negative social
consequences.

The
collective greed, competition and insecurity created by usury
correlates with the same qualities being generated in the minds of
individuals within the population. Reminiscent of the three Buddhist
poisons of greed, hatred and delusion, these "poisons of usury"
come to dominate the mental make up of large numbers of people
within society and are the hallmarks of egoic consciousness.

And
finally, the incessant conversion of the natural world into money
correlates with an objectification of the body and the mental self
in the consciousness of the individual, just as usury forces us to
objectify the world collectively. The individual thus afflicted
tends to turn self, body and other into extensions of the ego.

If
these correlations are correct, and I don't think it could be
disputed that we see these phenomena in the modern world, then
clearly usury has an extremely damaging effect on the character
structure of the average citizen. Combined with the social effects
noted by Eisenstein and others, it certainly looks to be the source
of many of the world's problems and one of the most important topics
that integral thinkers should be addressing at this point in time.

6.
An Alternative System

Clearly
then, when designing a system to replace usury, we would need to
consider the effect of this new system on the character structure of
the individual in order to ensure that it is truly healthy. We would
be looking for a system that will cause individuals to be as
uncontracted as possible, and to exhibit a personality that is an
integration of freedom and self-discipline.

Eisenstein's
preferred system is one of negative interest. Basically the
opposite of usury, this is a system in which interest rates are below
zero and is thus one in which stored capital loses value over time
(also called demurrage). For example at an interest rate of
minus 10%, $100 stored in the bank would have decreased to $90 at the
end of the first year. Conditioned as we are to believe that storing
money should accrue money, such a system initially seems
disconcerting and possibly even unfair. However, when the
implications are worked through, it actually makes a great deal of
sense. Not only does it encourage the circulation of capital, but it
brings the underlying nature of money into line with other stores of
value such as perishable goods or precious metals, that either
degrade over time or require payments for storage and protection, and
thus into line with nature. I will not attempt to outline
Eisenstein's entire analysis of negative interest, as it falls beyond
the scope of this article, but instead refer the interested reader to
Sacred Economics.

However,
one property of a system of negative interest that is relevant to
this essay is that it is inherently decentralising. In a system where
capital loses value over time, rather than accumulating savings most
individuals would be encouraged either to donate their money, or to
invest or lend it in order to prevent their store of it from
degrading too quickly. This has the effect of augmenting the flow of
money and pushing capital out from the centre to the periphery in a
centripetal motion, rather than sucking it inwards as happens under
usury.

In
terms of the negative effects of usury already noted, I would suggest
that a system of negative interest would remedy them in the following
manner:

Because
of the relationship between the collective and the individual, we
would expect this decentralisation to have a decontracting effect on
the character of the average citizen, with psychic resources no
longer being centralised in the ego. This decentralised, spacious
self is equivalent to the centaur in transpersonal theory. In line
with my mandala model, such a decontraction would be expected to
affect all aspects of the individual, that is her body, energy,
emotions and thinking [13] and to lead to the integration of all of
these in a more harmonious sense of self.

Another
property of a negative interest system according to Eisenstein is
that it is more efficient than a usury-based system and would not
lead to gluts of goods and services. This greater self-discipline in
the collective would translate to a greater self-discipline in the
individual and thus to the natural, organic integration of freedom
and discipline that I have argued is the hallmark of the
uncontracted self.

And
from the fact that forcing individuals to interact in a cooperative
manner with their communities will have the effect of overcoming
selfishness and encouraging a greater sense of community, we can see
that a negative interest system would erode the self/other
distinction and the three "poisons of usury" (greed,
competition and insecurity [14]) leading to greater social openness
and emotional balance in the population. This is another piece of
evidence in favour of the argument that it would overcome egoic
consciousness in the individual.

Finally,
we would expect that in a system of negative interest, or degrowth
economy, because the relentless drive to convert nature into money
no longer exists collectively, for there to be an eventual end to
the objectification of mind, body, other and nature in the average
citizen.

If
this mini-analysis is correct then clearly the integral community
should be advocating reform of the banking system as a matter of some
priority. Whether negative-interest turns out to be the desired
alternative or not is a question that I suggest should be the subject
of further debate. While it looks promising at a first reading, it
may have unexpected consequences when put into widespread practice
that Eisenstein and its other advocates have not foreseen. Reform
must therefore be carried out in a controlled way, and the process
managed meticulously to ensure that it is having beneficial effects.

Of
course, advocating banking reform would bring the integral community
into conflict with the existing structures of global financial, which
will not give up their power easily, but I argue it should do so
anyway as a matter of principle, as it certainly appears as though
monetary reform is essential to bring about the integral society that
all in the movement want.

7.
The Bigger Picture

In
the overall model of reality that I am presenting, the individual
citizen is a smaller mandala existing inside the greater mandala of
society, which itself exists inside the still greater mandala of a
world-system (in this case, samsara). Therefore just as society
exerts a degree of influence over the structure of the individual,
samsara exerts a degree of influence over the structure of any
society existing within it, as well as directly over the individual.
Samsara is basically a world-system that has become contracted and
thus it entraps within itself worlds and beings that have become
contracted themselves, and then works to hold that contraction in
place.

Ultimately,
therefore, the self-contraction of the individual is caused by her
living within samsara itself and will not disappear until she
transcends this system. However, from my overall model, it follows
that the mechanism that holds the individual within samsara as a
whole is dual in nature. Firstly, we have the more overt
self-contraction caused by living within a usurious economic system,
which, being one holarchic level above the individual, affects mainly
the gross levels of the mind [15]. But secondly, we have the
contraction caused by living within samsara as a whole, which, being
two holarchic levels above the individual, affects him on the more
subtle level of consciousness [16]. Therefore both mind and
consciousness become contracted in a mutually reinforcing manner.

Being
a system of consciousness the contraction samsara causes in the
individual is on a level more refined than gross-mentality alone, and
we thus require a transpersonal strategy in order to completely undo
it - a mental technique on its own will not do the whole job.
However, a significant part of the battle can still be won through a
transition from a usury-based monetary system towards something less
constricting.

And
by analogy with the individual, a contracted society exists within
samsara only by virtue of that society being contracted. Should it
decontract, therefore, an entire world can be liberated from this
system, just as can a being. In Buddhist theory, such worlds are said
to be Pure Lands, worlds that exist outside the cycle of birth and
death, and it is perhaps towards becoming such a world that our own
is headed.

Footnotes

[1]
c.f. Lietaer, B. (2001)

[2]
Eisenstein, C. (2011)

[3]
In order to find this site, please enter the terms "Sacred
Economics Eisenstein" into a search engine.

[4]
In reality it is often a lot more than $11.

[5]
Freud, S. (1991)

[6]
Reich, W. (1970)

[7]
Fromm, E. (2001)

[8]
In line with my mandala model, I would add the physical and energetic
spheres to this statement.

[9]
Smith, A. (2000)

[10]
Wilber, K. (2000)

[11]
O'Connor, J. (2015; 2017a; 2017b)

[12]
Wilber, K. (1996)

[13]
These are the four cardinal points of the individual mandala in my
model.

[14]
At first glance it may appear that negative-interest would lead to
greater insecurity as people would not have a nest-egg of cash
to rely on in hard times. However this is not in fact the case as
their "nest-egg of cash" still exists but is distributed
amongst the community, to be drawn on as needed in proportion to
their previous generosity. Hence, security is increased as they are
no longer relying on the success of one person (themselves) but
instead the success of all individuals in the network.

[15]
This is consistent with the principles of the one-scale model.

[16]
This way of viewing the relationship between samsara as a whole, and
the consciousness of the individual, is unique to my version of the
one-scale model.

Bibliography

Eisenstein,
C. (2011). Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age
of Transition. Self Published in E-Book Form.